Protest Against the Global Drug War - 11.03.2009 (Sub: ENG, RUS, HUN)

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The United Nations held its High Level Meeting on drugs on March 11-12, 2009 in Vienna. HCLU and its allies, SSDP, INPUD, ENCOD and Youth R.I.S.E. organized a demonstration against the global war on drugs on March 11, at the entrance of the Vienna International Center, to call for a drug policy based on human rights and harm reduction.

An HCLU Film

Protest Against the Global Drug War

11.03.2009
Vienna International Centre
UN High Level Segment

We would like to ask you to spread the news

about the huge difference and gap between the real worlds problem,

between the terrible things which are happening in the world,

and between the discussion which goes on inside of this building.

The past ten years were a failure, as were the last hundred years of prohibition.

We're grateful that in the U.N. declaration they mention that the impact,

the disproportionate impact, that drugs have on youth.

Yet we're disappointed that they missed the fundamental point:

that drug prohibition and our drug laws also disproportionately and negatively impact youth.

In the United States alone, if a young person is convicted of a drug offense,

they are denied access to financial aid to attend college,

they are denied public assistance benefits like welfare, food stamps, public housing,

they are denied access to professional licenses like to become a teacher or truck driver.

And the criminal record, being saddled with a criminal record for drug possession,

for something as simple as marijuana possession,

will prevent them from getting a good job for the rest of their lives,

which actually makes the drug problem far worse,

by denying them access to economic advancement,

that is the number one way of keeping someone

from having a serious substance abuse problem.

Young people are subjected in our public schools to random student drug testing,

which teaches them they are guilty until proven innocent,

that they should be judged by the content of their urine

and not the content of their character.

In other countries the problem can be far worse.

Young people are routinely sent to quote:

"treatment centers" which are nothing more than prisons,

warehouses, with people sometimes twice and three times their age,

turned into victims and subjects of violence, rape, and sometimes worse.

And this will not change until young people

are brought into the process of developing global drug policy,

and a drug policy that is based in public health,

in reason, in science, and in evidence,

not in ideology and dogma.

We are ready to negotiate, are you?

Lets end the war.

Fighting for peace in the war on drugs.

We are saying here that the governments are talking

about the need to renegotiate,

but they are not negotiating,

because all they believe in is dogma.

This is a policy process driven by political expediency,

not by public health.

We are saying that it is time to put public health first,

to recognize

the only science based policy on drugs is harm reduction,

needle exchange, opiate substitution therapies,

and involving drug users for change.

We are here today, ready to negotiate for peace.

We are drug users campaigning for an end to the war on drugs.

'Well its good to know that you're here,

some of us are working hard for you in there.'

Thank you very much. Which country are you from?

Australia

Australia. Nice to meet you.

We are today,

sick of our people being abused,

being murdered, being tortured,

being offered restricted health care,

being thrown out of housing,

having their children taken away from them.

It is time for change.

We call on the United Nations

to stand for its founding principles of human rights.

We cannot have a drug control problem

that breaches the very fundamental principles

on which the United Nations was formed.

It is time to put human rights first,

and to end the war on drugs,

and to give human rights to my community.

Let my people go,

give us freedom.

It's time for peace.

We have from five to seven million people using drugs,

most of them are injecting drug users.

Wherever we have a ban on using methadone and buprenorphine therapy

that shows that has showed its effectiveness

and efficiency in the whole world.

Harm reduction in our country runs very well.

Needle exchange program,

methadone treatment,

and everything.

But unfortunately,

our countries delegations

say no to vote for

harm reductions term in this CNV meeting.

They said it was a year of reflection,

the year from March last year until now.

But there has been no reflection.

There has been no independent evaluation.

They simply evaluate themselves,

and they say things are going well.

But there was an independent evaluation,

from the European Commission,

and their verdict is very negative,

that things have gotten worse,

and that prohibition makes things worse,

it does more harm than good.

They cannot say:

well yeah, you're right,

cannabis can be bought by every adult in Holland,

and the levels of use are about average in Europe.

If they admit that this is the case,

they can stop the whole thing and go home,

and do something else.

And that’s what should be done, of course.

To arrange sensible regulations,

and that would be a lot better than the way it is now.

Transcribing: Anna Fischer, Subtitles: Hunter Holliman